Madrid Travel

cool, enjoy yourself. Dont forget to take pictures at the Bernabeu.

Crap, I saw this jsut now... if by chance you're in Madrid until friday, September 13th, that night it's the "Nuit Blanche" festival and the museums and other cultural activities, including open air ones, will open up to 3AM. Last year, the Bernabeu museum was open for free -it's 10€ otherwise-. It's very crowded but also a great experience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuit_blanche
http://www.esmadrid.com/es/portal.do?IDM=25&NM=1&IDR=656&TR=C

If you've arrived by plane you might have seen Barajas' Terminal 4 which should satisfy you. The ampliation of the Reina Sofía museum is also worth seeing. There also a couple nice buildings in the Castellana, excluding the four skyscrapers of our old training ground, which IMO are a bit ugly and out of place.

(Madrid also has the M-30 tunnels, which are indeed a huge engineering project but in the end they're just some big tunnels, and you need to go by car...)

You're evil. My advice is not to go there drunk. Which means that I do agree with what you guys said.

Hey Dmar, thanks. I actually am in Madrid and will stay here until monday, September 15. I prolonged my stay in order to watch RM vs Numancia. i was planning my trip to RM museum for Saturday. I know about Noche Blanco but did not know that entry might be free for that day. thanks for the info.
RM jerseys were so very expensive in a shop at Puerta del Sol that I checked. over 90 EUR for the top and another over 30 EUR for the shorts. I wanted to buy 3 (2 for my two sons) but Im not sure anymore. Previous season´s jerseys were much cheaper though.

Forcamadrid, I don't know what this season's prices are but that sounds expensive. As you are probably aware by now Puerta del Sol is the centre of the tourist areas in Madrid, so it may be a higher price.
Have you tried El Corte Ingles or the Real Madrid shop which are both nearby?...
Corte Ingles on Calle de Preciados and Madrid Arena shop on Calle del Carmen
(both heading towards Gran Via from P del Sol.

As I said, I'm not sure of this year's prices, so they may be the same...but there's no harm looking.
(You can try at the Bernabeu as well)

Ah yes...I did not consider the name/number on the back...that would bring it up.
I did actually have a search on El Corte Ingles website and the shirts were 65E so add the numbers/letters to that and yes that is about right.

Anyone who spent 90E on a Robinho10 shirt this year.

Hello guys,

Writing back from Albania now. I enjoyed my trip to Madrid so much I can't even express it. I made the Bernabeu tour which was very exciting. Watched the game in the stadium also which was quiete an experience.
On the way to tha stadium I happened to travel together witha group of Numancia Ultras from Sol to the stadium. I had my RM scarf on me and my wife started to get a bit worried/afraid and asked me to take it off. I told her, we are at home here so nothing can happen to us .

I was seating on lateral este, sector 130. Basically I was right across the penalty spot on RM area of the first half, but a bit too low (I was in the 4-th raw).

The Ultras were amazing. When Numancia scored their first goal, the stadium went dead, but they started to sing even louder. At one moment they were chanting something to another group behind me and they replied back. It was something funny cause a spanish girl sitting besides me started to laugh at that. I am very curious to know what they were saying. If anyone was in the stadium, or if someone heard it on TV, please tell me what it meant.

Got some nice pictures or clips (my wife made most of them as I was very busy chanting) and I will post them as soon as I learn how to do that here .

And Maca, no.... I did not take the risk going through that dangerous area.

I prefer the word 'interesting'
Glad you enjoyed your trip.

It appears that I will be in Madrid for the Barcelona game in April. Anyone knows of a good place to buy tickets.

Can someone recommend some good restaurants/tapas bars in Madrid? For around 25euros or less per person?

Thanks in advance

If you understand Spanish, you can browse here or here. There are hundreds of places.

One of my personal favourites is this one. This is another traditional tapas bar. For something slightly different, you can try El Almendro, or in Cervecería Cervantes. If you want a more "fashionable" restaurant, you have La Musa.

I remember you recommended one to me in La Latina a few years ago and we had a good meal there.
Can't remember what it was called though.

Lots of good places everywhere. If you are after tapas just wander around and try a little of something everywhere.

Could be the first one. I recommend that place to everyone and they always like it.

No, its not one you posted on the last page.

I highly recommend Taberna Arqueros, 5 minute walk from the Bernabeu.

Thanks everyone.

I'm going with my girlfriend, and she really wants to watch flamenco. Any suggestions? Also, is it necessary to book tables for restaurants in advance?

My family and I are seriously considering going to Madrid around August/September for a week and I just have a few questions:

1. Where would the best place be to stay? (Would prefer if it was close enough to the Bernabeau but would also like a place that would be fun and nice)

2. When do RM have open training sessions and how much would it cost? How far would it be from the place you have suggested and how will we know when they have them?

3. Does every European game go on sale around a month before it's played like the Lyon home tie? If not, when does they usually go on sale?

4. What's the night life like? I ask this because we went to Benalmadena last year and the family loved it, absolutely loved walking around the Marina at 11 o' clock at night.

5. Are there many shops around? Bars, restaurants?

6. What's the atmosphere like in Madrid? Are the people very friendly?

7. Is it a family holiday?

Thank you very much for the help. I'm asking so many questions because I'm kinda pushing for the family to go to Madrid, because of one obv. reason, so I want them to enjoy it and want to go back there again

Again thank you for the help

I dunno about flamenco. I'm not into it and I have the feeling most places are too touristic. As for reservations, it's not necessary, but there are exceptions and it never hurts. Anyway, many of the places I posted are bars.

Man, it's too many questions together. Ask the Madrid Tourism Office.

Anyway, I'll help you but only if you promise not to leave Spain with a Mexican hat in your head.

For pure tourism and one week stay I recommend the old city center. Which hotel I can't tell, depends on your budget. If you can afford it, Hotel Ritz is my choice. If you go low-budget just any cheap hotel in the center that you find in lastminute.com or so will do. Hotels in Spain are very high quality and cheap compared to other European countries so a three stars one form lastminute.com will usually be still fantastic. The Bernabeu stadium is far from the center and unless you wanna see it all the time to experience adoration, I don't see the point. I don't know of any hotel near by, but in Google you find these ones that I don't recommend because they are very far anyway from the Bernabeu, from the center abd very expensive but just take a look http://www.booking.com/hotels/landmark/es/estadio-del-bernabeu.en.html

I don't know, ask around to others. Usually they train every week-day morning that they are not away for a match. It is outside Madrid and you need a car. Maybe calling or emailing Real Madrid? Check the web site.

I don't know at all. Keep asking because someone knows for sure. Maybe in the other forum soccer related more people will read the question.

Madrid is famous for its night life. In the week ends the streets are packed with people til very late in the morning. Thousands of bars, restaurants, shows of any kind, theaters, discos, pubs... I personally haven't seen a city like Madrid in this sense, so lively til so late. But as opposed to Benalmadena Madrid has no sea and is far from being a family-friendly city but stressful and dangerous where you can't lose sight from your children. You don't have a Marina to walk around relaxing. Actually Madrid lacks places to walk relaxing like that. It is quite frantic and people walk fast. Like most big cities.

There is a famous urban legend which states that only in a certain area of Madrid there are more bars than in the whole Norway. Yes. A LOT. And I recommed you to eat in restaurants from Asturias and Galicia, the northern regions of Spain with great food and drinks. You wll find many in the center.

Definetely not. Unfriendly, unpolite and will try to steal your wallet and charge you double or triple than the real price. You will surely only meet guys who deal with tourists and they certainly treat you like sheep. Madrid is a very stressful, aggressive and now also dangerous and expensive city. You can certainly have fun because most tourists do and they love it, but just be careful, this is not Disneyland exactly. Always mind your wallet, never leave it in your rear pants pocket while walking around, put everything in your front pockets, be extemely careful in the tourist center, specially with children and girls who are the ones trained to rob tourists all the time. Our laws protect and allow them to do it once and again. Also mind your cameras and mobile phones. You and your family. And I'm not exaggerating a bit. Same about the car if you rent one. Don't leave anything inside.

Definetely not. It is a destinaton for young people to party and for older ones as a cultural visit (great museums, musicals, shows, concerts, restaurants, bars, discos...) but not for children.Just think of New York for instance or any big city. Is New York a family holiday place? Madrid has 6 million people by now and it's the 4th largest european city after Moscow, Paris and London.

^

Istanbul is bigger then Madrid iirc, unless you count Turkey as an Asian country. Istanbul is half in Europe and half in Asia.

Ok thanks very much Bernabeau. Looks like we might not be going there after all after reading that.

Ok ok. Eddie was right. I am the worst spanish tourism promoter. I am too critical with our city because I live here and get angry for the stress and traffic and so on, but I wouldn't really live anywhere else and all the foreginers and tourists usually love it for the fun and intensity they find. It is dangerous only about pocket pickers in the old tourist center, not that they kidnap you or your children. Nothing like that. God I exaggerate so much sometimes... Any big city is dangerous in this way.

You are right, but I'd like to know the population of the European side because that is the only one that would count in this comparison. Not a big deal but for pure curiosity and statistics.